Drowns A Little Different
by MintSauce
Summary: One-shot. Stiles is used to feeling like the world is closing in around him by now. Too used to it even. But everyone drowns a little different and he'll cope however he damn well wants to.


**So I don't know where the hell I went with this, because I started and just sort of rambled. But my friend Sean asked me to write something for him, so this is what happened. Enjoy, or don't, it's up to you. Please review even if it's just to tell me this sucks. **

He has those days still. Those days that had used to be frequent but now were few and far in between. He used to have panic attacks after his mum died, that wasn't so much of a secret anymore. He'd told Scott that and Scott wasn't the sort of person who would have known that that was a part of Stiles that he didn't want anyone seeing. Because this person, this person that had pressed themselves into the back of his closet, clothes strewn across his bed where he'd hastily pulled them out, this person was one he was ashamed of.

So yeah, he had those days still. The ones where he felt like the entire world was pressing down on his shoulders, was suffocating him and he just wanted to remember how to breathe. He just wanted to be able to remember how to do that one simple thing, to manage to finally grasp that one inhale that would make everything just release. His mum had always said that panic attacks were just his body's way of reminding himself how good it felt to breathe.

He didn't know if he could believe that anymore. He didn't know if that explanation, those simple words said with a smile and a hug, he didn't know if that was enough. Because he'd used to get panic attacks just from knowing that he'd never hear his mother say those words again. He used to get them when it finally hit him again that she was gone, that it was just him and his dad now. The kid with ADHD and the sheriff with a weak heart.

They were a disaster story written in the stars and sometimes Stiles didn't even know why they bothered trying to fight the inevitable. The inevitable that this was all going to end.

It'd gotten better, of course it had gotten better. When he'd finally made that adjustment that meant he'd learnt to remember immediately that his source of comfort now came from the press of his dad's fingers against his shoulder rather than his mother's smile. It came from the smell of Old Spice and gun powder rather than flour and lavender soap. He learnt, he forced himself to learn and some days it was enough to just survive.

Until it wasn't.

Until everything had happened with Scott and werewolves and until that world had suddenly felt a thousand times smaller again. Until it had felt like it was all caging him in, weighing him down punching the air out of his lungs. Nowadays it was so easy to think about giving up. In the pool holding up a paralyzed Derek, he'd thought about just letting go, he'd thought about allowing it all to end. He'd thought about drowning.

_Everyone drowns a little different Genim, you have to remember that._

And there it was. The reason he didn't. His mother's words in his head. Words he'd told himself he'd forgotten but could never imagine letting go of. _Everyone drowns a little different._ Yes, they did. Stiles drowned underneath the weight of everyday life. He drowned underneath the weight of his Dad's distrust and Derek's angry glares. He drowned under the sheer weight of Scott's dependency and under the knowledge that he was in over his head. That he was well over half way up shit's creek and he didn't even think he'd gotten into that boat with a paddle at all. Or maybe he had, but he'd lost it when his mother had first been diagnosed with cancer, when Scott had become a werewolf, when his Dad had gotten fired, when everything had started spiralling too far out of control.

_When. . . when. . . when. . . when was this all going to end?_

That was the question he kept asking himself, it was the question he wished he didn't think was the most important one, but still did. He carried on holding them up in that pool, didn't let them drown because it wasn't the right time. The time would come, but it wasn't then. And it wasn't fair to drag Derek down with him. _Everyone drowns a little different._ Derek had been drowning for longer than him, Derek who had lost his entire family and yet was still fighting. Fighting for what Stiles didn't have a clue, but he was still fighting.

So Stiles hung in there, kicked his legs and tried to think of how the hell they were going to get out of this one. He _survived_, because that was all he was really doing anymore. It wasn't living. It was surviving, plain and simple.

He thought he was entitled to his days though. To the days when he just broke down and wanted to make the rest of the world just go away. He'd let them all have their way tomorrow. He'd let them all ask him questions and demand the answers before he even had time to think how to give them. He'd let them push and pull him around and try to stretch him in a million different directions at once. He'd let them do whatever. But tomorrow. _Tomorrow_.

Because yes, he's _that _person. He's that person that'll pretend that it's all fine. He's that person that will smile even though he'd screaming inside. He's that person that laughs to keep from crying and ploughs on forwards when he wants to turn around and run and hide. He's that person that let's sarcasm and a jumble of words be his shield; because he's also the sort of person to ignore how blatantly flimsy that protection is.

Sometimes he blames his mum, sometimes he blames the werewolves and sometimes he just accepts that maybe this whole thing is just his lot in life. Maybe God just wanted someone to dump the load on because he didn't want to carry it anymore, so that was how Stiles came about. But no matter what the story, it doesn't change that this is his life. This is all he has and he has too many people depending on him now to even have time to think about ending anything. He'll admit to thinking about overdosing on his Adderall – wondering if that is even possible – one too many times, but those are just the thoughts in his own head so he's more than entitled to those.

He faced the fact a long time ago that it wasn't his fate to last very long in this world. He was the human among the wolves. He was fragile and more than a little stupid and he was always jumping forwards when he should have been backtracking as fast as possible. But see, the thing is, Stiles is _that_ person. He's that person that stands there and says, "I'm not afraid of you," even though they all know he's lying and that really he's absolutely fucking terrified.

He's just that person.

And maybe he's all too aware of the fact that _this is his life_ and maybe he isn't aware enough that he could just run away and leave them all too it – that people hint he should do exactly that really quite often. Maybe he knows that when he finally goes out, when that one lucky bullet or arrow finally cuts through a part of his body that's fatal that people are going to be as pissed as hell. But that really doesn't matter. Because whether he goes out with a bang or with nothing more than a small choked off gasp, it isn't going to change the fact that _this. is. his. life. _And he'll end it any damn way he wants to.

_Everyone drowns a little different, Genim, you have to remember that._

And Stiles, well Stiles has been underwater for far too long it's not even worth it to hope for oxygen anymore.


End file.
